First of all I hope you know who Naomi Klein is.
Naomi Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization and of corporate capitalism. She is best known for No Logo, a book that went on to become an international bestseller; The Take, a documentary film about Argentina’s occupied factories that was written by Klein and directed by her husband Avi Lewis; and The Shock Doctrine, a bestselling critical analysis of the history of neoliberal economics that was adapted into a six-minute companion film by Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón, as well as a feature length documentary by Michael Winterbottom. Her latest book is This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, a New York Times non-fiction bestseller and the 2014 winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. Klein frequently appears on global and national lists of top influential thinkers, most recently including the 2014 Thought Leaders ranking compiled by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, Prospect magazine's world thinkers 2014 poll, and Maclean's 2014 Power List. She is a member of the board of directors of the climate activist group 350.org.
More recently:
Pope Francis adds ‘secular Jewish feminist’ Naomi Klein to climate team
If proof were needed that politics really does make odd bedfellows, the sight of progressive Canadian activist Naomi Klein on a Vatican platform with the pope’s personal spokesman on Wednesday, joining forces in the push for stronger environmental protection, probably provides it.
Her latest book is impressive to me for many reasons not the least of which is how it backs up what Jim Coffman and I wrote in our book.
This diary is motivated by a section entitled " The Extractionist Left" in which she corrects the misconception that all the problems we face as we fight to restore sanity to our world do not come from the political right. Read on below and I'll explain.
The fifth chapter in This changes everything is entitled " Beyond Extractivism: Confronting the Climate Denier Within". One definition of extractivism is:
Extractivism generally refers to an economic model centred on the large-scale removal (or “extraction”) of natural resources for the purposes of exporting raw materials.
Extractivism is about as incompatible with sustainability as any idea we can think about. In her words:
Extractivism is a nonreciprocal dominance based relationship with the earth. It is the opposite of stewardship, which involves taking but also taking care that regeneration and future life continue.
As we did in our book she traces the attitudes that led to our present dilemma to the Scientific Revolution focusing on Bacon rather than Descartes as we did.The religious teachings that were so much a part of all this are also something she discusses. The relationship between the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution are something we both develop in depth. These ideas can be followed to our present struggles against the rape of the earth.
The interesting thing that those of us on the left often gloss over is the way the extractivist mentality has permeated all political thought across the political spectrum.
She reviews the history of the Cold War and points to the obvious misuse of the environment by the Iron Curtain countries. Even those examples are distant enough to not get to the heart of the issue.
She points to the contradictions we have here at home when whole industries are threatened by the the need to stop extracting fossil fuels. Workers, unions, etc. are put in impossible situations because there is no real plan for how to do this. It is clear that the oligarchy could care less about their fate. But what about the left? Is there a comprehensive plan anywhere that shows how the workers will be taken care of if we ever succeed in turning this around? Yes the problem has been thought about yet where is any comprehensive plan? You know no such plan can exist in a society where planning has been condemned as tyranny.
As long as the effort to set things straight is cloaked in an ideology that says that it has to be done within the confines of the business model it can not but prolong the delay of a real solution. As long as the so called solution is framed in a mindset that puts humans in control of nature it is hopeless. Too many people on the left believe in such fairy tales and therefore think some adjustments can be made after we win enough elections and all will be well. That is a fantasy we see echoed again and again here and in our so called "progressive" political discussions.
Let me end with her last paragraph in this chapter:
Only when we dispense with these various forms of magical thinking will we be ready to leave extractivism behind and build the societies we need within the boundaries we have - a world with no sacrifice zones, no new Narus.
(
Nauru
is a phosphate rock island with rich deposits near the surface, which allow easy strip mining operations. It has some phosphate resources which, as of 2011, are not economically viable for extraction. Nauru boasted the highest per-capita income enjoyed by any sovereign state in the world during the late 1960s and early 1970s. When the phosphate reserves were exhausted, and the island's environment had been seriously harmed by mining, the trust that had been established to manage the island's wealth diminished in value. To earn income, Nauru briefly became a tax haven and illegal money laundering centre. From 2001 to 2008, and again from 2012, it accepted aid from the Australian Government in exchange for hosting the Nauru detention centre.
She uses this example in the argument she makes.)